Student Employment: HR Hot Tips

Tip one: forms

For hourly student and graduate appointees

Appointment form (accessed through PeopleSoft)

  1. Use to appoint a new employee to your department or reappoint/rehire a terminated student. For directions, see the PSHR electronic workflow user guide at Electronic Workflow.
  2. WIN required. New employee requires a Social Security number.
  3. All hourly appointments require hours to be submitted via Kronos or a Kronos correction form to Payroll.

Transaction form (See Student Employment Online Transactions)

  1. Use for an active student for transactions such as pay changes, account code changes, work study changes, separations, and job code changes.
  2. Employee identification number required. Do not use Social Security number or WIN.
  3. Use Internet Explorer or Chrome to ensure the form reaches Human Resources.

     

Tip two: pay rate entry

  1. Pay rates default into the PeopleSoft appointment form once the grade and step have been selected. The form will not let you pay in between a grade and step.
  2. If you are paying a rate above the SE3 step grade, level 3, use the grade SEQ and the pay rate box will open up for you to enter the new rate above SE3/3.

Tip three: FICA

  1. The FICA audit program is run every pay period and it checks faculty, staff and students for exemptions to FICA taxation.
  2. Review Requirements for FICA Tax Exemption on the Payroll web site.
  3. The FICA status will be automatically switched when there is a change in the student’s status. You do not need to submit any forms to change FICA.

Tip four: work study

  1. The appointment form defaults to 'yes, to pay from work study (when available)'. If you do not want to use work-study as the funding source, select 'no' instead.
  2. If a funding source of an appointment needs to be switched from work study to no work study or vice versa, then process a transaction form.
  3. Awards may be canceled if no paycheck has been issued within the first four weeks of the term.
  4. Monitor hours regularly.  It is the department's responsibility to verify hours worked agree with the time reported and paid to each student. If you employ a student who also works in another department, you may need to coordinate the use of work study.  If wages paid exceed the work study award, overages will be charged to the employing departments.
  5. Reference Financial Aid's web site for more details.

Tip five: payroll and deadlines

Human Resources is still manually entering forms.

  1. Deadlines are noted on the WMU Payroll Pay Schedule in the HR Forms Cutoff column.
  2. If the form is not received by the deadline, there is no guarantee the employee will be paid that pay period.
  3. If you do not see your student on Kronos, please e-mail hr-hris@wmich.edu. The HR staff will investigate and respond.

Questions

Reference PSHR electronic workflow user guide and Forms Forum archives for each semester's appointment dates.

 

modified 5/14/17